Palominos ready to make postseason run

By Garrett Kroeger, Laredo Morning Times

Published
10:40 pm CDT, Sunday, October 21, 2018

The Laredo College soccer team will take on Blinn College in its opening round postseason match Wednesday at 3 p.m. The Palominos beat Blinn 4-2 and 6-0 in their two matches against the Region XIV foe this season.

The Laredo College soccer team will take on Blinn College in its opening round postseason match Wednesday at 3 p.m. The Palominos beat Blinn 4-2 and 6-0 in their two matches against the Region XIV foe this

The Laredo College soccer team will take on Blinn College in its opening round postseason match Wednesday at 3 p.m. The Palominos beat Blinn 4-2 and 6-0 in their two matches against the Region XIV foe this season.

The Laredo College soccer team will take on Blinn College in its opening round postseason match Wednesday at 3 p.m. The Palominos beat Blinn 4-2 and 6-0 in their two matches against the Region XIV foe this

The Laredo College soccer team finally knows its opponent for its opening postseason match Wednesday.

The Palominos will take on Blinn College in the opening round. Laredo’s match will be at the Laredo College South Campus Sports Complex at 3 p.m.

Laredo was able to sweep Blinn this season in both region matches winning 4-2 on Sept. 19 and 6-0 on Oct. 12 — the latter tying the program record for largest shutout win ever. While the Palominos had success against the Buccaneers this season, they know it will be a difficult match nonetheless.

“It’s a total different story this time around,” Laredo head coach Juan Ibarra said. “We already beat them twice, but we can’t think it’s going to be an easy game. We are doing good, but it’s now win or go home. We have to take the postseason one step at a time.”

Laredo finished the regular season 10-4 and third in Region XIV. As for Blinn, they were 6-10 while taking sixth in the conference at 5-9. The Buccaneers are entering postseason play on a two-game win streak — a 5-0 win over Jacksonville and 2-1 overtime victory against Angelina. Before that, Blinn had lost six straight.

In both games against Blinn this season, the Buccaneers were defensive and tried to capitalize on Laredo’s mistakes. So the Palominos will try to be patient but at the same time try to create a lot of chances — which was something they were good at down the stretch.

Laredo recorded 17 goals over the last three games. The Palominos finished with a school record 55 goals this season — the previous high was 46 back in 2014.

“We had a great finish,” Ibarra said. “We finished really strong and with that, our guys gained a lot of confidence. We are going to be ready Wednesday and hopefully to make a run at nationals.”

The Palominos will try to replicate the playoff run they had last year — which was the best in school history — when they won three games before losing in the South District Tournament Finals 2-1 against eventual NJCAA champion Tyler Junior College.

Volleyball suffers five-set heartbreaker

The Laredo College volleyball team split its final two matches at the Border Classic Saturday, with its lone loss coming from one of the nation’s top-ranked teams in a five-set thriller.

On the second day of the Border Classic, the Palominos took on Region XIV North division foe No. 10 Trinity Valley. But Laredo College suffered a defeat after dropping a 3-2 decision (19-25, 25-23, 25-18, 24-26, 6-15). This was the Palominos’ first five-set match this season.

“The takeaway was that we could play at that level,” Laredo head coach Brittany Harry said. “The last ranked team we played before Trinity Valley was Navarro. They were fifth or sixth at the time. It’s been a couple weeks since we played a ranked team, but it was a night-and-day experience from the Navarro match.

“Our girls showed a lot of confidence. They believed that they could win. Saturday was a heartbreaker. It was bittersweet. We dictated a lot of the match. Unfortunately couldn’t get the win.”

The Palominos were swept 3-0 by Navarro, now ranked No. 6, back on Oct. 5.

Laredo (20-6, 5-2 Region XIV) sits in second in the South Zone division of Region XIV with one conference game left. As for Trinity Valley (22-4, 2-4), it finishes third in the East Zone division.

Offensively, the Palominos were led by Kristi Gomez, Isela Murillo and Melanie Arenas. Gomez led the way with 16 kills while Murillo contributed 13 and Arenas chipped in 10. The rest of the team combined for seven.

Defensively, Laredo got a big day out libero Regina Tijerina as the freshman recorded 27 digs. She also got help from Murillo — who dug 19 balls — and Gomez — who recorded 12. Sophomore Lucie Mahelova had 36 of the Palominos’ 38 assists.

While Laredo suffered a heartbreaker, the Palominos ended the classic on a high note sweeping Victoria 3-0 (25-11, 25-12, 25-21).

Against Victoria, the Palominos once again had big contributions from Murillo on offense and defense. The outside hitter led the way with 16 kills and 18 digs while having an attack rate of .560. Mahelova was again Laredo’s top assist leader with 33.

The Palominos have one game left before the Region XIV Tournament. Laredo ends the regular season on the road Friday against Wharton County (7-20, 0-6) at 6 p.m.

“I feel like we are in a good place to wrap up the regular season to head into the region tournament,” Harry said. “I don’t think Wharton’s record reflects how good they are. We can’t take them lightly.”